Book X

And now having spoken of assaults, let us sum up all acts of violence
under a single law, which shall be as follows: No one shall take or carry
away any of his neighbour's goods, neither shall he use anything which is
his neighbour's without the consent of the owner; for these are the
offences which are and have been, and will ever be, the source of all the
aforesaid evils. The greatest of them are excesses and insolences of
youth, and are offences against the greatest when they are done against
religion; and especially great when in violation of public and holy rites,
or of the partly-common rites in which tribes and phratries share; and in
the second degree great when they are committed against private rites and
sepulchres, and in the third degree (not to repeat the acts formerly
mentioned), when insults are offered to parents; the fourth kind of
violence is when any one, regardless of the authority of the rulers, takes
or carries away or makes use of anything which belongs to them, not having
their consent; and the fifth kind is when the violation of the civil
rights of an individual demands reparation. There should be a common law
embracing all these cases. For we have already said in general terms what
shall be the punishment of sacrilege, whether fraudulent or violent, and
now we have to determine what is to be the punishment of those who speak
or act insolently toward the Gods. But first we must give them an
admonition which may be in the following terms: No one who in obedience to
the laws believed that there were Gods, ever intentionally did any unholy
act, or uttered any unlawful word; but he who did must have supposed one
of three things--either that they did not exist--which is the first
possibility, or secondly, that, if they did, they took no care of man, or
thirdly, that they were easily appeased and turned aside from their
purpose by sacrifices and prayers.

CLEINIAS: What shall we say or do to these persons?

ATHENIAN: My good friend, let us first hear the jests which I suspect that
they in their superiority will utter against us.

CLEINIAS: What jests?

ATHENIAN: They will make some irreverent speech of this sort: 'O
inhabitants of Athens, and Sparta, and Cnosus,' they will reply, 'in that
you speak truly; for some of us deny the very existence of the Gods, while
others, as you say, are of opinion that they do not care about us; and
others that they are turned from their course by gifts. Now we have a
right to claim, as you yourself allowed, in the matter of laws, that
before you are hard upon us and threaten us, you should argue with us and
convince us--you should first attempt to teach and persuade us that there
are Gods by reasonable evidences, and also that they are too good to